Why So Many Update Patches for Windows?

I just bought Surface RT today. There are about 60 update patches and the update process took a long time to finish. Compare to iOS it just has a few update e.g. iOS 6, 6.0.1 6.1 not so many patches like Windows. So I wonder why Windows has so many update patches.

I just bought Surface RT today. There are about 60 update patches and the update process took a long time to finish. Compare to iOS it just has a few update e.g. iOS 6, 6.0.1 6.1 not so many patches like Windows. So I wonder why Windows has so many update patches.

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Do you believe iOS 6.0, 6.0.1, 6.1, etc. only contains a single patch each? I'm willing to bet that each one of those versions contains many individual fixes. The difference is that Microsoft releases each fix as they come out rather than waiting for a combined rollup all at once. I'd rather get them as they're available.

I just bought Surface RT today. There are about 60 update patches and the update process took a long time to finish. Compare to iOS it just has a few update e.g. iOS 6, 6.0.1 6.1 not so many patches like Windows. So I wonder why Windows has so many update patches.

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Because you just bought it.

iOS doesn't need so many patches because it does very little. Let me put it this way: Windows RT is much more technically complex than iOS. The more parts there are, the more complicated the maintenance (and, yes, the greater the probability that a part won't work properly). Moreover, many of the patches are related to MS Office, an extremely intricate collection of software that iOS can never replicate. One of the biggest patches for a new Surface RT is switching Office preview version to the full version.

Firstly, Microsoft take a much more proactive approach to security than Apple. An Apple fan might tell you that's because iOS and Mac OS X suffer from fewer security vulnerabilities. This is of course, completely false. A whole range of security issues are regularly and frequently discovered in both of Apple's key Operating Systems, but Apple prefer to hold off on releasing these and bundle them into bigger, monolithic updates, or indeed simply not release them at all in favour of bundling them into the next product update. Apple do this in an attempt to maintain the illusion their products are more secure.

Microsoft by contrast release updates much more frequently. Microsoft's 'Patch Tuesday' approach gives business users predictability as to when security patches will be released, allowing them to schedule their patching processes accordingly. For consumers, it also means you get a product that can be kept more secure - patches are a part of life if you want a secure product.

Of course, not all patches are security patches - plenty of patches are to improve performance or stability too. Again both Microsoft and Apple handle this differently. In iOS for example, it's pretty rare that you see any kind of minor patching going on to update performance or stability unless a major problem is disvoered. In OS X, Apple do release updates on a regular basis. Microsoft prefer to push out smaller updates monthly, but hold off on a bigger set of improvements until they're ready to release a Service Pack or other kind of major update (as is coming in Windows 8.1).

Why do Microsoft hold off? Well, the reality is that Windows is in use on a broad range of hardware out there, with a vast number of different configurations, and so it's good practice to test all the updates and improvements thoroughly, ensuring that they work well together as well as just standalone.

In short, there are more patches because Microsoft care more about fixing things fast, but in a sensitive way that makes sense. Apple prefer to hold off as much as possible and turn their updates into product launches that their CEO can brag about in front of an audience. Microsoft are kinda doing this too - but at least in the meantime they keep on top of their security bugs!

Not all the MS patches are security, mind, and some of the initial Surface updates you see on a new machine are performance tweaks like audio adjustment and firmware updates (this is MS' first computing machine, after all).

The whole security comparison thing is amusing to me, though. I have a friend who's a die-hard Apple fanatic, and he constantly brings that up; the counter is that Apple computer OSes (I don't see iOS/Android as "computers" in that traditional sense) make up such a small fraction of the market that there's no point in trying to target them. The purpose of a virus or trojan or whatever is to infect as many machines as possible. Likewise, if you're going to hack a business for black-hat purposes, virtually all world businesses run on Windows and/or a flavor of *Nix. If Apple OSes were the 90% majority instead, then you'd better believe they'd be the ones targeted. (iOS is a majority of the tablet market, yes, and it does have security issues along with Android. But they're leisure devices, and I'm thinking in corporate terms.)

Both Surfaces fit particular use cases. It kills me when idiots buy any product and find it doesn't fit their use case and then blames the product itself. Crap marketing had a lot to do with it here... but really the only time you blame the product is when it genuinely fails what it should do--like a camping backpack's seams ripping. In the case of Surface, the common types of complaints are more like "I bought a Honda Fit, but it's a piece of crap because it's not a Subaru Forester." -me

Or its just the case that they bought the device as a simple consumption device and it fails at even that... You cannot seriously try to PIN a 900 million write down, 6 million unsold tablets, on users being stupid? This seems to be a common theme among the MS Fanbois, blame the users. Good god, the RT flopped, it was such a disaster they are pushing Ballmer out the last couple doors at MS he can fit through... He announced he was retiring and the stock SURGED on that news alone... Blame the user is the last ditch attempt of a company writing bad software, to explain bad performance of said product. They bought a tablet that doesn't work, is slow, fails to update, has apps that crash and an OS that doesn't quite operate on all thrusters. The RT's failure was not due to people having inflated or misguided expectations of it, but rather RT's failure to meet even the lowest of either. -me

You cannot seriously try to PIN a 900 million write down, 6 million unsold tablets, on users being stupid?

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Nope. I pin it on the fact that they made way more than they sold. Whoever thought a new product with a weak app store compared to the competition, but priced the same would sell $900mill worth was insane. Just like WP, its not going to sell until it has apps.